“Charleston, Charleston/ Made in Carolina/Some dance,
some prance/I’ll say there’s nothing finer/Than the Charleston,
Charleston. . .” Spontaneously one of us broke into the anthem of
the Roaring Twenties as we crossed the Ashley River into the
historic downtown section of the town Conde Nast ranked best city in
the USA in 2011, only to raise their estimation the following year
to best city in the world.

This was going to be our
first visit to the famed harbor city whose military
distinctions remain in the forefront of its consciousness.
The initial shots of the Civil War were fired here, streets
are paved with ballast once used in battle, and the hotel we
were headed to bore the name of the general from the

American Revolution who is credited with
being a founder of guerilla warfare. But driving down King
Street on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and lingering beside
the horse-drawn carriages before Marion Square where the
spire on the little church at its center seemed tall enough
to pierce a hole in the sky, the mood seemed eminently
peaceful, inviting, evocative of another day.Directly across
the way, on the corner of King and Calhoun Streets, stands
the tall and elegant Francis Marion Hotel. When it opened in
1924 at the height of the Charleston dance craze, the
12-story, 232-room Georgian-style building was the largest
and grandest hotel in the Carolinas.

“At the Francis Marion, you really know you are in
the South,” Tressa Wright, director of sales and marketing, told us
when we met her for coffee in Swamp Fox (the restaurant and bar bear
the nickname of Francis Marion). “It’s the best place in town and
possessed of a very southern atmosphere, a local flavor that has
remained through the years.”

In the olden days, Tressa said, pitchers of ice
water would be at the end of every hallway. Today air conditioning
has precluded such features, but a local flavor, an antebellum aura
prevails particularly in the lobby, a splendid bi-level space on the
second floor that is marked by rectangular pillars with
classically-inspired capitals and lit by sparkling crystal
chandeliers that hang from a ceiling nearly three stories high.
Dotted with potted palms and arrangements of fresh bouquets, replete
with plush sofas upholstered in fine damasks in shades ranging from
copper to coral, and replete with a grand piano and cabinets of
rich, gleaming mahogany, it looks out to King and Calhoun Streets
through tall Palladian windows trimmed in white.

A historic hotel in a historic city, the Francis
Marion is, at the same time, very much a 21st century affair with
all the elements one expects in a luxury property from valet parking
to complimentary wireless Internet service, fine dining, the
services of a concierge and the rest. Through the decades, it
attracted a roster of celebrity guests among them Babe Ruth, Bob
Hope, Elvis Presley, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Doris Day.

But there were down times as well. The hotel was
even closed for seven years. During that period, the College of
Charleston proposed they take over the property and convert the
guest rooms into dormitories. space. But the mayor summarily
rejected the idea. “It’s always been a hotel, and it will remain a
hotel,” he reportedly said.

And so it has, since 1996 when the Francis Marion
re-opened after a multi-million dollar renovation project which
included restoration of original architectural features that had
suffered from years of neglect. As a result, the hotel was named one
of the fourteen national preservation success stories by the
National Trust for Historic Preservation. Its renovation is looked
upon as the catalyst for the revival of King Street.

Some seventeen years later, we are sitting with
Tressa in Swamp Fox. It’s a busy afternoon; every table in the bar
and restaurant seems to be filled. Tressa tells us most of the
people here are associated with the natural gas industry; they have
chosen the Francis Marion to host a conference on this source of
energy. Visibly enjoying the low-country cuisine and live piano
jazz, they seem, by their very presence, to pose an interesting
counterpoint: the confluence of a new industry with a setting
renowned for its past.

The next day, we checked out and drove down to the
Battery where we strolled through the White Point Gardens, admired
the beautiful, perfectly maintained 19th century houses facing the
harbor, walked along the promenade along the edge of the waterfront,
and reflected on the scene in Swamp Fox we had witnessed. And it
occurred to us that the merging of past and present is what
Charleston and specifically the Francis Marion are all about. There
is King Street winding all the way down to the Battery, its high-end
shops featuring goods from Dior to Miu Miu on the ground level of
19th small century buildings, one huddled up against the other. And
there is the state-of-the-art full-service Spa Adagio and a
Starbucks on the entry level of the landmarked Francis Marion, a
hotel listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is, as
Tressa said, a unique hotel, with great character and so aptly set
in one of America’s most beautiful cities, deserving of its
designation as one of the best cities in the world.

Francis Marion Hotel
387 King Street
Charleston, SC 29403

Phone: 843-722-0600

Photographs by Harvey Frommer

# # #

About the Authors: Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer are a wife and husband
team who successfully bridge the worlds of popular culture and traditional
scholarship. Co-authors of the critically acclaimed interactive oral histories
It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened in Brooklyn, Growing Up Jewish in
America, It Happened on Broadway, It Happened in Manhattan, It Happened in
Miami. They teach what they practice as professors at Dartmouth College.

They are also travel writers who specialize in luxury properties and fine dining
as well as cultural history and Jewish history and heritage in the United
States, Europe, and the Caribbean. More
about these authors.